Golden Apple
by Swiss Army Knife
Summary: Stories exploring the character and relationships of Iolaus. Chapter Summary: Nebula knows that her relationship with Iolaus isn't for keeps, but that doesn't stop her from enjoying one of their brief interludes; Additional characters - Nebula
1. Apple

Author's Note: The "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" fandom isn't very large or lively these days, but it has always been one of my favorites. There are some wonderfully talented authors, many of whom still have their work available at the _Iolausian Library_. However, the archive on this site is extremely small. Even so, I'd like to make my own writing available for those few readers who may be out there, wishing that more Hercules stories existed. So enjoy, kindred spirits!

**Golden Apple**

by Swiss

* * *

**1. Apple**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules, Jason

Summary: The Mongolian Orlok sends a gift of admiration to a certain blond hunter, and Jason is understandably exasperated.

"This is just ridiculous."

* * *

Jason stood surveying the myriad crates being carried into the throne room and left in towering stacks that had begun to crowd every available bit of his marble floor. Almost every bit, and still the parcels were coming. They had arrived early that morning packed into a ship from Corinth's newest trading partner. And the circumstances that had brought them to the palace?

Iolaus flinched away from the look on consternation on his old friend's face. "Hey! Don't look at me like it's my fault." He sought the appropriate tone to fully insinuate his complete lack of involvement, "_I_ didn't do this."

Jason raised dark brows. "Oh? Then why, may I ask, am I currently holding a message from the Mongolian Orlok with your name all over it?"

Iolaus pouted, "You can't be sure she was talking about me. I was only there for support. She never got my name."

"Bright Sun across the Steppe," Jason read from the list in his best uplifted tone. "Light of the Deity in the pallid, barbarian winter, flaming heart of Udon, Dawning Balm in –"

"Okay, you can stop now. Gee."

The older man looked revolted. "How did she come up with all this rubbish?"

Hercules took the paper from Jason and flattened it as it curled around his fingers. A quirk of amusement lined his face as he read through the endearments again. "You should have seen it in person," he commented. He grinned at his partner, his expression caught somewhere between affection and exasperation. "You really had an impression on them. I think maybe it was the back flip off the horse."

Iolaus snorted. "Well, someone had to make up for your bad impression."

Hercules only shrugged, waving the letter at him as though to say, _'Yeah? Well, look where it got you.'_

There was a miserable eye-roll. "I'm never being polite to foreign dignitaries ever again," Iolaus declared. "How did they even get these apples? I thought they were nomadic."

Gloomily, the King or Corinth muttered, "You'd be amazed the clout of impassioned royalty."

Hercules felt the need to defend his friend. "It really was an accident, Jason," he said.

"One time is an accident," Jason ground out the words. He crossed his arms, surveying the hall. "I just don't understand how this always happens when I send you two anywhere."

"Hey, we always come back with a treaty, don't we?"

"And with a stack of requests to purchase one curly-headed blond Corinthian from half a dozen wealthy royals or dignitaries you happened to bump into along the way."

"I'm charismatic!" Iolaus squawked, as though this explained everything.

"All I have to say is that it's a good thing you're really from Thebes." Jason shook his head. "Thankfully, most of these people understand politics, if nothing else. Otherwise, Corinth would have long ago been at war with half the tribes and countries around the Mediterranean."

"Aw, you wouldn't sell me, would you, Jason?"

Any smart response died in this throat in the face of Hercules' look of imminently descending wrath. Demurely, Jason muttered, "Of course not."

They all took a few moments to brood over the mounting piles of crates. Gesturing to the mess, Iolaus returned to his original argument. "I still don't see how all of this is my fault."

"If you hadn't eaten that whole bowl of apples," Hercules began objectively.

"I was starving, Herc! And they were such pretty things. Red and green and so crunchy…" He began to take on a dazed, rapturous expression, and Jason sighed, imaging what damage that such an image had caused. Honestly. No one had a right to look that completely blissful over apples. It wasn't his charm that got him – _them_ – in so much trouble, Jason decided. It was that face. He just had a way of being too damn _luminescent_ all the time.

Jason sighed again, rubbing vainly at the onset of a headache building in his temple. "Well, I hope you enjoyed them. Because your new buddies have now gifted you with enough to feed the entire city. And now they are sitting. In my throne room."

"I like apples," Iolaus commented flippantly. He had drawn his sword and seemed to be considering prying open one of the boxes, but then he thought better of it and gestured imperiously at Hercules. With a resigned shrug, the demi-god helpfully tore up the lid. Iolaus dove in, coming up with one bright, waxy fruit in each hand and another in his mouth. "Mmmph." His pleasure was muffled through his mouthful, but they got the idea.

"At least it's not a litter of serpopard like last time," Hercules pointed out. The other two both shuddered. The Nubian Leul had been less…diplomatic…than most.

Jason resumed his disgusted survey. Iolaus idly munched on an apple. Both younger men blinked innocently at Jason's glare. "It's not so bad Jason," Hercules tried to console him.

"What am I supposed to do with enough apples to stock a festival?" the king blurted. A thoughtless blunder.

Iolaus perked up immediately. "Festival?" he repeated.

The grimace that stole over Jason's face was enough to make Hercules laugh. Iolaus was bouncing on the balls of his feet. Somehow the apples in his hands had multiplied, and a fey light had dawned in his eyes. Both of his friends watched as his happiness seemed to intensify to a golden glow. Jason went so far as to groan.

Unaffected, Iolaus begged hopefully, "Festival?"

Hercules gestured around them at their plentiful bounty. "Well, we do have the apples."


	2. Cold

**2. Cold**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules

Summary: Iolaus complains about the frozen barrenness of Norseland, but Hercules can only think about how much more cheerful this journey is compared to the last time.

* * *

"It's not enough that you have to drag me over and across a forsaken tundra, but why in Hades do we have to climb a mountain too?"

Hercules benevolently ignored his partner, more intent on finding hand and foot holds along the icy precipice. The cold always made Iolaus cranky, and though this was their most adventurous climb so far, it certainly wasn't the first. Norseland was a rocky country, once you got past the coast. And though he and Iolaus – born and breed in he Peloponnesus – could climb like mountain goats, sixty-two degrees north latitude admittedly made necessary a whole different kind of fortitude.

They were making their way up the side of a steep incline, hand over foot, in the early hours before dawn. The land extended beneath and beyond them much as it had, a dreary grey expanse that stretched from eternity to eternity, a world seemingly empty of anything but rock and snow – ethereal, but dark and dead. And cold.

The layer of frost, snow, and ancient ice that lay over every surface had burned Iolaus' fingers, worn them red, raw, and painful. Hercules had sewn him a pair of crude gloves out of the last hare Iolaus had managed to snare, turned inside out so that the fur lining would provide some protection. Iolaus' current garb was mostly a patchwork of sewn, borrowed, or bought garments from different stages along their journey. But all the fur and heavy wool in the world couldn't completely warm him.

He hadn't believed Hercules about how cold Norseland was. His experience was the snowy yet comparatively mild Grecian winters. True, he had lived through the capture of Prometheus, but a few days of fireless storm did not compare to the ageless, bitter cold of the deep North. The barren, frozen immenseness of it had shocked him, and there were times when he had stopped, stiff, shivering and miserable, and scowled at his amused partner while cursing the landscape through teeth too frozen to even chatter.

"I can't believe you talked me into coming here," he would usually say during these times. The venomous tone he used was akin to the way he spoke about distressingly slimy monsters or going without food.

Hercules' ripostes were purely philosophical, full of the certainty of one who knew that Iolaus would never have been left behind. "When I mentioned it, you were excited. I thought you wanted to see where I went last year."

Such remarks were usually greeted by a stomping of ice coated feet as they started off again, trailing a number of low-throated grumblings that followed the line of, "You really must have been crazy."

These lines of discourse, oft repeated, shouldn't have been comforting, yet it was so much more cheerful a journey then the last time Hercules had been here that usually he just grinned. Behind his hand. Where Iolaus might not see.

"Heads up," Iolaus called, his voice seeming soft on the edge of the open air. He was pulling himself over the rim of the world, over the lip of the peak they had finally climbed. Hercules heaved himself the last few feet, and then he too was standing beside his partner at what seemed like the perimeter of heaven.

Iolaus was bent over, catching his breath. The air was thin here, sharp. He watched the vapor from his own mouth curl in front of him, and whipped his brow. The day was almost here. Perfect.

"Okay, Hercules. We climbed the mountain." His partner seemed to have gathered what air he could manage and joined him. Though his words were a bit snippy, there was very real question in his eyes. "So, what are we here for?"

The demi-god smiled. It was what he had been waiting for. "It's a surprise."

Iolaus' eyes took on an amused cast. "Surprise?" He put his hands on his hips and looked around. Everything looked the same. Ice. Snow. Rock. Dark. The only difference was that it was higher. "Where?"

Hercules grinned and put an arm around his friend's shoulder, turning him around to guide him carefully to the very edge of the steep incline. The first tip of dawn was just beginning. Hercules said, "Look."

Eternity began to change colors. The sun rose slowly, lifting the darkness like a bright, rose colored child shaking off a blanket of night. On a snowy white canvas the dawn drew pure colors – deep purple, rich crimson, and liquid gold. It shifted with the light as it made its slow progression, like a toy – a kaleidoscope full of painted glass. The finale was grand too, when soon it became a macrocosm of unending brilliant whiteness with the full light of day, so dazzling that to stare at it too long would blind a man. The sunlight sparkled from every surface, even out of the shadow, like a thousand diamonds on a sea of velvet.

Hercules felt the deep inhale from the man beside him. Iolaus whispered, "Oh."

Stifling a chuckle, the taller man grinned down at his companion. "Yeah. What do you think."

Iolaus let out a delighted sound, wonder in his expression. He seemed transformed. The stiffness that had inhabited him for much of their trip drained away, and the mischief in his eye when he looked up at his partner resembled the wild-hearted apparition that the demi-god had so missed during that long, long year apart.

"Well," Iolaus said, as though he were conceding something only begrudgingly, "I guess there is something to this wretched wasteland after all."


	3. Embarrassed

**3. The Rock That Concussed Hercules**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules, Jason

Summary: Jason was documenting the events as they took place. He planned to call it "The Rock That Concussed Hercules." Inspired by the poem, "Wheel Chaired Butterfly" by James Tate, a truly insane work of something like genius.

* * *

Jason sat on the heavy oak bench in his late wife's home, reclining comfortably with a scroll of parchment propped against one knee. Mostly he observed the tableau playing out before him, but occasionally his face would quirk into an irreverent grin and he would dip his quill to the paper, making a quick notation before he forgot it.

So far he figured he had enough material to keep himself in stitches for two seasons.

He was going to call his composition "The Rock That Concussed Hercules." Though, to Hercules' credit, Iolaus had reported the stone itself had been reduced to rubble. However, the fact remained that here was his stepson – Greece's strongest man – beamed halfway out of his mind in the middle of his floor.

Jason thought Iolaus looked understandably stressed. It had been hours since he brought Hercules home, and together the two of them had treated their unbreakable friend's head wound. Lethargy, they'd expected. Headaches, disorientation…

The blue-eyed hero was looking decided glassy eyed. Pawing at Iolaus' arm fretfully, Hercules informed them, "My hair is locked."

Former-king and old-friend both stared at him for a long moment before Iolaus eased awkwardly out of his grip and patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "Eh, well. We'll worry about that later, okay, Herc?"

The demi-god seemed consoled. Visibly relaxing, he said, "Kay."

He'd been talking like that since he regained full consciousness. Stumbling around talking to things that seemed invisible and making strange, scrambled exclamations that didn't make any sense. Moreover, bludgeoned-Hercules had proved a little grabby. Jason rubbed his bruised shoulder at the reminder and pitied Iolaus, whose loyalty wouldn't allow him out of range, even if his confused friend would have. Which he wasn't, currently.

Jason really had tried to be comforting and supportive. However, Iolaus seemed to have a magic he didn't, and anyway Jason had drawn the line when Hercules tried to braid his hair. He had firmly refused the attention, but Iolaus was looking a little disheveled with half a dozen more-or-less completed braids around the crown of his head.

Which really just proved that the bond of friendship was more like bonds-as-in-shackles, Jason thought. Smugly. From a safe distance. Because the dizzyingly protective blonde was looking like his sense of humor was a little frayed and Jason had seen what the man could do with an arms length of string and a rind of grapes.

Self-consciously, he moved the bowl of fruit further from the center of the room and its occupants.

Setting aside his scroll, Jason attempted some minor repentance for his thoughts by offering the demi-god a bowl of stew. However, Hercules made such as face at Jason's cooking that Iolaus barely avoided his own concussion when the clay bowl flew across the room at head level.

"Herc!" Iolaus admonished, but the bigger man only sulked. Then he tried to rub the taste off his tongue onto the leather jerkin he wore. Jason was insulted.

Insulted enough to abandon Iolaus with his buddy long enough to take a leisurely walk. Or mostly leisurely, because as soon as he reached the main path he had a vision of Iolaus being accidentally splattered against a wall of Jason's neat little cottage. They were chatting (and alive, thank the gods) when he returned.

"You really hurt his feelings, Herc. You need to say sorry."

"Don't want to."

"Why not?"

"He has a mustache."

There was a pause, then, "Herc, Jason is just trying out a new look."

"It tasted nasty."

"The mustache?"

"…yes?"

"Okay. But you still need to say sorry."

"I don't like kaleidoscopes."

There were many disturbing things about this conversation, but Jason thought that perhaps the strangest was how coherent it actually sounded. Self-consciously, he smoothed his new mustache before joining them in the room. He started neutrally, "Do you want to try the stew again, Hercules?"

The other man blinked at him with such utter blankness that Jason shifted. His upper lip itched. Finally, the hero answered, "No, Iolaus gave me a headache."

"Fruit. I gave him some fruit," Iolaus clarified, crossing his arms.

Hercules licked at a half finished apple. "The core tastes funny," he announced. He stuck it in Iolaus' face, a dubious offering. "See?"

Iolaus made an ill-advised attempt to push it away from him, which only ended in pain when Hercules caught hold of a fistful of blond bangs and all but shoved the apple up his nose. The poor mortal sighed, but with an affectionate, long-suffering look at his friend, gave in and gave the fruit a tentative lick.

Hercules gazed at him expectantly. "It tastes like Xena, right?"

Iolaus appeared to give this serious consideration, but eventually he must have decided that whatever the warrior princess might be, it wasn't apple flavored. He bravely shook his head. "Ah, not to my recollection, Herc."

Hercules, who seemed to have been thinking about this in an entirely different (and possibly quite incomprehensible) context, looked momentarily irritated. Fortunately, he was distracted by something shiny.

Jason, the wielder of said shiny thing (a polished pewter plate) obligingly handed it into waiting hands and pulled Iolaus away for a semi-private word. "This can't go on," he said. "He'll hurt someone."

Iolaus seemed preoccupied watching his partner chew on the edge of the plate. "I'm worried," he wrung his hands, brow creased. "I've seen people get funny after a head injury, but this…" His eyes were concerned, but, looking at him, Jason had to struggle to keep the grin off his face.

"What?" the hunter snapped.

The former-king just shook his head. It was hard to take the man seriously with his crown of messy braids.

"Jason." Iolaus' growl returned his attention.

Reassuringly, he put a heavy hand on Iolaus' shoulder. "Hercules has a hard head, Iolaus. And you know how concussions are – some men go a little loopy for a while. I'm sure it will wear off." He added, "I've bandaged him up as best as I could."

The calculated mention of the bandage elicited the spontaneous chuckle he'd hoped for. Iolaus looked back at his poor, brained buddy, who seemed to be having an absorbing conversation with his own dull reflection. "He's never going to forgive you for that hair cut."

"I couldn't get the bandages around his fat head otherwise." Jason's calmly excused himself from responsibility. He _wasn't_ smirking. "I had to cut off a little."

The hunter snorted. "A little?"

Okay, to be fair it was a bit more than a little. But Hercules would look good with half his head shaved. _Really._

Meanwhile, the demi-god gave a sudden, startling wail. Panicked, he bellowed, "Global Warming!" at the top of his lungs. Seemingly terrified, he made a lunge at his best friend, who was far, far too slow to dodge the terrified embrace. Jason took note of the shallow "Urp" Iolaus made, followed by ineffective flailing and gurgling.

Jason watched for a moment. Then, cautiously, he tried patting the demi-god on one bulging bicep. "Ah, Hercules. Everything's okay."

"Hrp!" Iolaus made a gasp that might have been his partner's name. Though it sounded more like a croak.

"No!" Hercules shouted, wild-eyed. "We're dying!"

"We're not dying," Jason reassured him. "I promise."

Whimpered, "It's hot."

"Oh. Well. I'll open the window, if you let Iolaus go."

"Iolaus?" Hercules looked like he had forgotten, but when Jason pointed to the tuff of struggling blond hair, he seemed startled and let go immediately. While his friend heaved the blessed air, Hercules patted him gingerly on the head. "Oh. Iolaus."

"Yeah, big guy," the blond muttered through watering eyes. "Iolaus."

"You okay, Hercules?" Jason asked.

The tall man shivered, rubbing his arms "The Global Warming is coming. It will eat our ozones."

There was nothing really intelligent to say to this, so Jason rubbed the bridge of his nose and then pointed to the plate still clutched in one of the demi-god's fists. "Did HE tell you that?"

Hercules looked suddenly glazed. Perplexed, he asked, "What?" Then, pulling up the dish to look at his reflection, he pulled a disgusted face and scowled at his mirror image. "No. He's an idiot."

A barely recovered Iolaus exchanged looks with a narrowed-eyed Jason.

Right.


	4. Forge

**4. Forge**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules

Summary: Iolaus' son learns some things from his father about fire and about life.

* * *

His father taught him about fire. He had to, since that was how his papa made their living. And since his mama was gone and someone couldn't watch him every day, he spent a lot of time playing at the edge of the forge's heat, just outside or inside that temple of flame. In fact, one of his first memories was of that familiar workroom bathed in dancing shadow, the white-hot dancers in the basin hazy to his infant eyes. And the warmth, like a blanket that cuddled him in his basket, while his father's mellow voice sang sweet and strong, lulling him beside the crash-bang tempo of a hammer and bellow.

Thus his first lesson was that fire meant home, safety, warmth, and his father. It was the very best lesson.

* * *

The second thing he learned about fire was that it burned. His father took him over to the fire-breathing portal, pointing out the tools to him, and the flame – the panting fire and luminescent ember. "You don't play here," his father had told him, stern as wrath. Surprisingly sternly, because that wasn't usually his way. "It will hurt you if you touch it," the man said again, and he spread his hands for the child to see. Scores of marks climbed the interior of war and work-worn fingers. Shallow, shiny groves crisscrossed his palms and wrists – some old and pale, but many a living, livid red; swollen, waxy, and painful.

"Oh," the little boy had moaned, reaching reflexively to sooth the wounds. But when he moved his father caught his wrists and gently turned the little hands up to the forge's light. They lay cradled there between his papa's brown fingers – clean, baby smooth, perfect.

"I want them to stay like this." The rough pads of his father's thumbs gentled his delicate digits, warmed tiny half-moon fingernails and his soft, unbroken skin. "Don't go near the fire without me," he told his child. He was using the important voice, and Acteon listened as though a god were speaking. His papa said, "Don't go near it, until you're big enough that I can show you how."

* * *

Acteon watched without a sound as his father prepared the animal, neatly carving it and arranging their offering on the small woodside alter. It was a simple stone-hewn thing, but well worn with hands and fragrant with hunters' prayers. Klonus, his friend – an age mate and almost cousin – touched the stained top tentatively, scrunching his nose in disgust. "Ew," he commented definitively.

His father grinned, rolling his eyes where only his son could see. "It's a way to say thank you and ask for blessing before a hunt," his father explained.

Unconvinced, Klonus stood shaking his head. "We don't do this at my house. We don't pray to the gods."

Again, that secret 'boy's-too-like-his-father' smile, before out loud Papa said, "Yeah, Herc's damn stubborn that way. And you'll notice that your family eats a lot of tasty stewed cabbage."

The boy opened his mouth to speak, righteously outraged, but then seemed to think better of it. Loyalties aside, he could hardly refute that they might all starve if it wasn't for Uncle Iolaus, however much the gods had to do with it. Acteon felt a deep pride in his father, knowing his skill. He was learning too; already his father had taught him to set the rabbit snares, though the intricate weave of ties were sometimes still too difficult for his inexpert fingers.

Both boys looked on in reverent silence as the older hunter lit the flame and the offering was consumed. Father and son folded their hands, and the son of the son of Zeus reluctantly followed suit, suspending his disbelieve because of a trusted mentor, but still a bit anxiously, as though breaking a rule.

Acteon listened to his father's litany to Artemis – soft and measured, a well learned psalm – and watched the smoke curl up to the heavens while the fire crackled merrily below. The aroma rose too – woodsmoke, animal hide, and fresh meat. Together a perfume to those that filled their table and lived their lives on the paths of the forests.

Fire, he learned, was for sacrifice. And it could carry prayers.

* * *

Fire purified.

Often, the son would watch his father about his trade. He would sit on the barrel just outside range of the sparks, and take in the muscle-rolling, back wrenching labor. A heating, pounding, cutting, crushing, tempering, clashing panorama of cacophony and toil. He though this father moved like a bronze god – straight out of the stories. He was all fluid grace and economy of movement; the easy, trained smoothness of an athlete and warrior. Acteon liked to watch him, his father's lines so bright, even under the tough leather apron and second skin of sweat. He liked to dream that he might grow up and be like that someday.

Sometimes in his watching – the movement and the tools and the works they made – his father would tell him things about his craft. Once he'd been commissioned for something special, a job from one of Thebe's lords, and he'd demonstrated the way the intense heat made the metal burn like the sun, how it straightened and perfected, the smoothing lines and true colors. He'd told his son about refiner's fire, a metal worker's truest parable.

Curious, Acteon had pointed out the pile of slag to the opposite of the completed craftsmanship. His father told him, "Some metals just aren't worth working. The fire tells that too."

It bothered him, and he said so. He thought it wasn't fair, but his father wasn't one to soften reality. He told his son – gentle but firm – that very little about living was fair, but that was the way it was. It was where value came from.

He'd caught the metaphor perhaps better than his father expected. He asked, "Can you chose to be special?"

The lines of the man's face grew pensive and thoughtful. Finally, he said, "I'm not sure, Acteon." It had disappointed his child, and the boy had started to turn away. Only to find strong arms gripping him, dragging him close. His father's eyes burned then, like a prophecy.

He finished, "But I think you can."

* * *

Fire was complicated. It hurt when it helped.

He remembered an anatomy lesson, an old hunter's trick. He'd brought home an animal, an injured baby fox that he'd found mewling somewhere while he was playing. The long gash had trailed the little canine's whole inner thigh. Blood had poured out, hot and heavy.

"Blood is your essential stuff – it keeps you alive," his father told him. He'd pressed his child's small hand over the trembling creature's breastbone, let him feel the flutter of the racing heartbeat. He showed his son the pulsing artery, carefully pinched off while he heated his knife. "This is the important one, the one we have to close off to save him."

Acteon had held the weak, struggling creature while his father did the deed. He'd held the panting, heaving animal, petting him compulsively. "He's crying," he'd said, a little tearful himself. His papa had nodded, grave but so sure. He'd soothed, "It hurts, but it's good for him. Things are like that sometimes."

Acteon thought he understood the lesson, but he hadn't, not really. He was benevolent to most all creatures, but the little fox had only been a pet. The real day he experienced the awful healing, hurting power of fire was the day he'd watched it used on his father.

The men had been on a trip, just a short adventure with Uncle Hercules. Acteon had been staying with Klonus and Aneson when the two men had come tumbling home. "Papa!" he'd cried when his father came in limp under Hercules' shoulder – boneless, breathless, and streaked sanguine. Oh, it was everywhere, tracked down his side. Instantly the floorboards were wet with it, and more with each heaving breath, each pounding heartbeat.

"Keep him back, Klonus," Hercules had snapped, and Acteon was pulled, crying, to the edge of the room. He watched the adults save his father, somewhere amidst the horrifying screams and writhing. "It hurts, but it will save him," he said to himself.

But he still would never forget the way his father looked on that table, or the smell of jagged, black, and sizzling flesh.

* * *

The last thing he learned about fire was that it ate up the dead. When he was four, a sickness spread through the village, a terrible thing that made people burn with fever and blisters, infection, fluid, and finally death. And it spread like the plague.

The men burned the bodies in piles outside of town. He'd seen the wheelbarrows, caught sight of the dangling arm of a little dead-eyed boy before his father pulled him inside. "Papa," he had cried, helpless with confusion. His father had cradled him against his shoulder. Acteon had buried his face in his father's collar, and tried to smother the aroma of burning human flesh under the safer smells of leather, cedar, outdoors and ash.

"Fire purifies," he father reminded him, whispered soft.

Some days later when the memory hadn't left him, his father told him more, "That's why they burn them, to keep the sickness away." The child must have whimpered, because his father had soothed him, "Hey," he said, brushing back the uneven bangs, "Dying is part of everybody's life, the last part of our journey. Heroes and warriors and kings are burned by fire too. It's an honorable thing."

But there must have been disbelief somewhere in his expression, some residue horror. Because next month when his father had gotten a message, he packed a bag for his son too. "We're going to Corinth," he'd said, and they had. An old companion, an Argonaut, had died.

The ceremony had been different than the mass, gloryless pyres. There had been stories of good deeds, flags, friends, and songs. There was sadness, of course, but Acteon though it was dim – that maybe the warmth of the fire tempered the grief. Uncle Jason held him while his father went to the bier and paid his respects. He watched, his eyes on the light from the fire, tangled in his father's hair.

And he remembered looking into the flames, and wondering, _'Will that ever be me?'_

* * *

Iolaus gave his small son up to the fire, because he couldn't bare the thought of laying his fair, beautiful boy in the dirt and covering him with cold earth. In life, the child had been alight, and there seemed a tragic rightness that he'd find his way to his mother, his nameless brother, in an equal breath of fever and flame. His little boy.

Hercules' hand was a weight on his shoulder, silently peering into his face as the tears made tracks in the ash streaked grime. His friend had had to pull him back as the body went up, because nerveless and stricken – or perhaps ready for his own death – he had almost been unable to let go of that small hand. So many times he had held it, a perfect fit in his own. He hadn't want to let go, and Hercules had to brush the growing ember from the front of his vest.

"Iolaus," Hercules called to him. Hours later, when the women had long gone and he was left alone with the husk of his child. Not quite alone: "Iolaus, it's cold."

Hands – gentle, insistent pressure turning him from the pyre. A palm against his forehead, against the side of his face. "You need to come inside." His friend led him gently; a lamb, a phantom, a wraith half-awake. "It's freezing."

The irony struck him across the face sharply enough to knock loose another river of tears. Iolaus chocked on a hollow, hallowed, gurgling sob. He cried. No, he thought, he wasn't freezing. He was burning.

He had burned up with his child.


	5. Hope

**5. Hope**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules, Zeus

Summary: Young Hercules meets his father and realizes the price of knowing him is too high.

* * *

For his entire life, Hercules had longed to meet his father. He'd risked his life – and the lives of his friends – more than once in his desperate quest to see him. He didn't miss the irony that when he finally got the chance, those lives were almost the sacrifice he'd been required to make for the experience. And he hadn't been willing to pay it.

They'd all lived, no thanks to Zeus. The god had very deliberately put them in peril. Hercules hadn't been prepared for the way his blood froze in his chest seeing Iolaus in the hands of that beast, or the way that all the anticipation he'd been building up had withered into a frenzy of helpless panic.

But they'd lived.

Hercules still hadn't recovered by the time they four of them were huddled around a low burning fire that night. Sick with might-have-beens, he managed to keep the trembling, terrified rage behind his teeth until Theseus and Iolaus had dropped off and he was left sitting alone with the mortal who wasn't mortal. Who was his father.

He muttered quietly, "You might have killed him." Iolaus. He might have killed Iolaus.

"Hm. He's alright, isn't he?" the manifestation grunted.

"No thanks to you." He looked to his friend, curled close, almost lost in the large, heavy cloak Aegeus had dropped carelessly around him. Hercules could only see half his face in the firelight, but gazed at him with affection that he didn't bother to veil.

"Do you like him so much?" There was a curl of Zeus' lips, twitching upward. The aged yellow of his teeth just showed, truly hideous in his mortal facade.

Hercules's face drained of emotion, carefully impassive. Half of him terrified of what he may have revealed, the other half knowing he couldn't have hid it from this...Being...anyway. Yet his heart still beat hard. Gods didn't care what advantage they took to get their way, and he didn't want any of them – even his father – meddling with Iolaus' life.

"Too late, my boy." Zeus chuckled out of the mouth of the old man, and it was a cruel sound to the ears of his son. The half-cocked smile was back, crocked on his face, like an old scar. He offered, "It's good that you're fond of him, though."

"What business is it of yours?" Hercules wanted to know. He was unaware that he had drawn back instinctively, further into the fire's orangey light and closer to where his friend slept.

The god looked at him, a dim amusement in his eyes. "I gave him to you, didn't I?"

Ignoring the way his child had whitened, he continued offhandedly, "One of my poorer

gifts to my children, perhaps. But you were just a little thing, and I had to be careful. Besides, what would you have done with a chariot of fiery horses, eternal youth, a weapon, or a kingdom? No, you weren't ready for something of the gods. So, I gave you

something of the mortal world." His eye trailed behind Hercules to Iolaus, a wry expression on his face. "And he's been better than expected, hasn't he? A very loyal animal."

It took all the will in Hercules' body to keep the dawning fear and horror locked wordless behind his teeth. He shifted between his father and Iolaus, cutting line of sight. "He," Hercules said with high emotion, "is my best friend."

And Zeus looked at him – half gentle affection and something like pride, half patronizing him, as though he'd spoken naively. Then he looked away, back to the fish he'd been idly cleaning, as if he needed the brutish tools or the corporal hands. "You're still a child, son. But one day you'll understand. And you'll always have the boy, as long as he lives. I made him for you."

"Iolaus belongs to himself and no one else!"

"Oh?" The being was looking at him, with eyes that could see through him.

"Leave," Hercules hissed. When his father blinked at him, seemingly incredulous at the command, he shouted, "Leave!"

For a moment longer he suffered under that measured, measuring look. A look at seemed to say, _'Are you sure, after all this time searching?'_ Yet Hercules was not so naïve as he had been just hours before. Seeming to read this in the coldness of his eyes, his father gave a nod. Then, the man was simply gone, without even a wisp of smoke or a lingering sparkle.

Hercules whispered after him, hoarse with his fear and anger, "And stay away from him."

"Herc," the voice from beside the fire drew his eyes. Iolaus moved underneath the clock, stirring. Hercules went to sit beside him, frowning with worry. His friend had taken some hard blows today. It was natural for him to sleep, but…

He shook Iolaus gently by the shoulder, "Iolaus. Can you open your eyes for a moment."

Wincing a bit, the other slowly drug open blue eyes that seemed dazed and cranky and very, very tired. He shivered slightly in spite of the heavy cloth and shifted so that he could sink against his friend's shoulder. Hercules smiled when he sighed, settling against the warm weight of his friend as though he were in a soft bed, safe at home.

As Hercules put his arm around Iolaus, his mind drifted to his father and he felt a catch in his throat that he couldn't swallow. Fear again, fear always, but also a stubborn protectiveness. He didn't care what Zeus had intended for Iolaus. They'd never abided by the plans of the gods anyway.

And sitting there beside his friend, he pondered his father's "gift" with a sense of something like wonder. Wonder, that in spite of all of his intentions, Zeus may have finally given a gift that came out right. Indeed, that was greater than the god could ever have imagined.

Home, happiness, and companionship. For him, they were all tied up here, in this body snoring lightly beside him, pillowed against his shoulder as if he belonged there.

And by fate or design, maybe he did.

Despite their thoughtlessness, Hercules found it was almost hopeful that sometimes the gods could do great things accidentally. It was hopeful. Though what that said for the world he didn't know.

* * *

Author's Note: A Young Hercules drabble, drawn from watching adolescent Herc run around seeking daddy's approval. I was disappointed by the last YH episode when Hercules met Zeus in a mortal guise and didn't recognize him in time for the conversation I wanted them to have. This is me envisioning a might-have-been for that episode. Because creepy, ulterior-motive Zeus is much cooler than emotionally-constipated-father-figure Zeus.


	6. Chain

**6. Chain**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules

Summary: Herc and Iolaus run into an old war buddy on the road.

* * *

The man had been a raving lunatic; that was Iolaus' diagnosis. Hercules admitted that he had been raving and might have been crazy, but it still didn't stop the words that the man had spoken from reverberating in Hercules' heart, over and over again.

They'd been passing through a small village, when they came upon the man on the road. He'd been walking unsteadily, visibly trembling and moving in a jerky, uncoordinated way. Hercules had stopped to support him when he stumbled.

He asked, "Are you alright?"

The man had turned up his head to face him with fever bright, red-rimmed eyes, wild in their wandering intensity. He'd been dripping sweat, bone and skin under Hercules' hands. Yet something about Hercules must have anchored the man, because he looked long and hard into the demi-god's face, and then he'd started screaming.

"You! You'll kill him!" The half-witted attack was hysterical. The man spat at Hercules, struck out at his face. "You keep him bound to your side like some kind of pet, exploiting his loyalty. You shackle him, you hold him! You'll get him killed!"

Someone from the man's family, a son, had located them quickly amidst the racket, and with the help of a neighbor had dragged the man away in frenzied tears, still shouting and cursing. The son had apologized. His father was sick, dying. He didn't always know when or where he was.

It was sad, Iolaus had said. He remembered the man as a comrade from an old campaign. Then, the man had been only average soldier, but he had been brave, and he and Iolaus had grown rather close. It was sad, Iolaus said, when sickness destroyed a person like that.

Hercules recognized the man too, though only his face. He also remembered that campaign. Iolaus had taken two arrows directly in the chest guarding his sword brother's back.

"Don't let him bother you, Herc," Iolaus comforted him. "He was crazy."

And he was, but somehow it didn't make Hercules feel any less nauseated. He looked over at the faithful shadow, ever at his side, and thought that whatever the man had meant in his madness, he had spoken the truth.

There were all different kinds of chains.


	7. Detour

**7. Detour from the Norm**

Character(s): Iolaus, Hercules

Summary: Herc and Iolaus fuss over the merits of the "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" video game in the twentieth century.

* * *

"We need a break," Iolaus had said. The man was a hero, brave beyond reproach, one of the greatest (if silent) legends in all history. How he managed to sound so petulant in spite of this was truly a mystery. "I don't want to save the world today. It'll keep," he'd whined, managing to make the world sound like milk left too long in the refrigerator.

Hercules frowned, but by now he'd lived long enough to know that sometimes he had a tendency to push too hard. Iolaus, as he always had, reminded him that simple joys were what made the world worth saving to begin with.

Saturday mornings with his best friend were simple joys.

Hercules reflected upon their living arrangements as he made himself some tea in the unromantic kitchenette, frowning at a crawling thing that scurried under the refrigerator. The apartment really dirty, just inexpensive. There wasn't much reason to fix it up since they never stayed in one place very long. That was one thing that hadn't changed much.

Of course, there were a lot of things that had…

In the main room Iolaus was sitting on the floor in front of the television, playing a game on a battered old N64, barefoot and in a t-shirt. Hercules padded over to sit behind him on the couch, grimacing in a pained, bemused way at the little pink stud of cubic zirconium in his partner's left ear. He still had his bits of copper and true gold hoops stored somewhere, but, true to his personality, he was not immune to the juvenile pleasures of costume jewelry. Once, to Hercules mortification, he'd gotten into his head to wear a little pirate's skull and crossbones, and no amount of talk about how Jason was rolling in his grave would get him to take it out for a full week.

Unfortunately (as Hercules saw it), the women of this century seemed to find the boyish rogue in Iolaus just as attractive as they had in their own time.

"I can't believe you're playing that," Hercules commented when he finally took notice of the game. "The graphics are terrible."

Iolaus' grin curled. "How can you say that about such a tribute to our legend?" he protested. "Besides, you only say that because the Hercules character is so much fatter and uglier than me."

"I would hardly call it a tribute to our lege – _HEY. I AM NOT FAT AND UGLY_."

"Fine, so maybe you aren't ugly."

"Iolaus!" The aggrieved sound in his voice went utterly unnoticed as the other man happily punched at his controller.

"Woo! Look how much faster I can go now that I'm Iolaus," he said. "I can even climb the vines!"

"I can climb the vines! Give me that!" Hercules demanded.

There was a slight scuffle over the controller, followed by much heavy-handed, inexpert gameplay. Finally, the demigod sat back, growling with frustration. Iolaus giggled, "Told you. You're too fat."

"I'm NOT – oh! Fine, I'll take out the bandit." This he did, expertly. The little Hercules character simply picked up the tiny bad guy and hurled him into a cliff face. Quite obviously dead, the bandit disappeared in a shower of coins.

There was a moment of stunned silence during which Hercules seemed unable to speak. Then he exclaimed, "I killed him!" He sounded genuinely horrified.

"Scoop up the dinars, Herc!" Iolaus shouted encouragement.

"I would never kill for money!"

"It's just a game, Herc. Ah. Now you've missed them. Maybe you need an easier quest. Why don't you save the kitten from the tree."

Hercules had had enough, and the game controller was given back, held by two fingers as though it was something distasteful. The conversation turned.

"_Must_ you wear that shirt?" Hercules complained with an anguished look. It was an awful "I love Hercules" tee from the television show which pictures him looking all bronzed and gorgeous, and it made Hercules cringe every time he saw it. He was pretty sure Iolaus wore it just to be obnoxious. It was working.

Iolaus picked at it, examining the large red heart emblazoned on it. "What?" he asked, an expression of wide-eyed innocence on his face. "This shirt is an alter to your manly glory."

The result was a full-bodied wrestling match. This mostly never worked. Household furniture broke more easily than the Grecian landscape. All it really managed to do was make them both tumble onto the floor, Iolaus laughing as though something inside him had ruptured.

It was the doorbell that ended the melee. Iolaus popped up from behind the couch as though on springs. "Pizza's here!" he declared.

"Not again!" If he had to eat _one more slice_, he was going to be sick.

Iolaus was unsympathetic. "You can eat the breadsticks."

"Don't you dare answer the door in that awful shirt!"

"It's the only clean one I have!"

"Well, then, why don't you do the laundry for once?"

"You always yell at me when I do the laundry."

"You never remember the dryer sheet."

"Well forgive me, Mr. Demi-god, if your clothes aren't light and fluffy enough to meet your standards."

If tested, Hercules probably could have kept the wiry warrior away from the door, possibly even without resorting to knocking him unconscious (possibly). But the phone chose that moment to ring, and Hercules was distracted for the slice of a moment it took for Iolaus to get past him.

He answered the phone with an expression resembling a very tired, grumpy…thing. But the gnashing of teeth quickly faded into a thoughtful expression at the sound of the familiar voice at the other end of the line.

Iolaus had mostly polished off the pepperoni by the time he reentered the living room and went calmly to regain his spot on the couch. His partner looked up at him when he leaned back into the cushions with a prolonged sigh.

"Can't wait?" Iolaus guessed. A slice of half-eaten pizza hung neglected from his fingers.

Hercules nodded, a bit heavily. He hadn't wanted to take his friend away from his Saturday off. However they fussed, he'd been looking forward to taking it easy, too. They had so few opportunities…

Still, duty called.

He returned from his mussing to watch Iolaus stand, devour his pizza slice, and brush off his hands with dramatic flare. He looked around, rooting for his shoes. "Alright," he said as he scrounged. "Off to be heroes it is!"

The martyred tone infused Hercules with humor easily, and he grinned. That is, before looking his friend over again. "Iolaus," he said, sternly.

Surprise stopped Iolaus dead. "What?"

Arms crossed, Hercules put on his best _I-am-demigod, hear-me-roar_ expression. With tremendous authority, he clipped, "You are NOT saving the world in that shirt."

Iolaus responded with his implacable, incorrigible _just-try-and-stop-me _look that had remained unchanged over the centuries. He said, "Then I guess you better do the laundry."

* * *

Author's Note: May I begin by asking that no one take this at all seriously. I couldn't come up with anything unique for "detour" and so I decided to leap into left field, gloriously. Thus, you have the slightly less than legendary domestic adventures of Hercules and Iolaus and the Hercules N64 video game (which really exists). So does the t-shirt, by the way. Go watch the season five episode, "For Those of Your Just Joining Us".


	8. Romantic Intent

**8. Romantic Intent**

Character(s): Iolaus, Nebula

Summary: Nebula knows that her relationship with Iolaus isn't for keeps, but that doesn't stop her from enjoying one of their brief interludes.

* * *

When Iolaus had shown up grinning outside of Methone – dragging his infamous, ragged bag and balancing his sword across a shoulder – Nebula hadn't bothered to ask him how he knew to come to that particular port. She had long since given up wondering how they could always find her. This time he'd been alone, begging passage to Patrae, presumably to met the demi-god there.

Her first, purely selfish inclination had been to say no. However, he'd looked so relaxed standing there in that easy pose, and she'd been distracted by the sun casting playful shadow over the smooth tan under his vest's crisscross patches. So she'd agreed, begrudgingly, to allow him to join her crew for the duration of his journey or however long he chose to stay with her. Though she knew well enough, even then, that nothing would keep him from leaving her for long.

A week into their journey they were following an easy wind and she'd left her men to mind the work of a well-founded ship's company in favor of the upper mast and the glory of the sailing sky. Here was her throne, all forward the horizon and everything below her kingdom. The sounds familiar to her lifestyle echoed faintly, all she'd ever wanted.

All she'd ever thought she wanted.

Looking through the complicated mass of cord and canvas, she spotted him easily amongst her admittedly swarthy company. It amused her, just a little, that perhaps only here he stuck out as the cleanest person within leagues. She was fond of her crew, but Iolaus was like a dinar in a bucket of more inferior metals – shiny. And bright.

Perhaps it was the humor of the metaphor that inspired her to call to him. She enjoyed the vista as he made his way to sit beside her, true-colored against the tawny ship-work shades. He'd sloughed his ugly vest at her insistence soon after he had entered her ship, ostentatiously because such an open, ratty thing was bound to snag or catch on something, and not at all because she preferred the view without it.

Before them, the horizon was a mass of color – red burnt violet and brilliant gold – spilt wine and sun-stain over a heavy Mediterranean sea. The mix made the waves shimmer like a thousand reflective coins, and the gentle swell rocked them in a breeze that was like a breath, warm and cool at once. Here, in the periphery of her world of canvas, the heavy, sweet-smelling cord tangled around their ankles, and the smooth wood of the mast pressed firm as any hearth had ever been beneath their thighs – here, master of her own vessel, caught in the wind and day's dying – it was as if she and him were the only beings in the whole world.

Obsidian eyes flowed over his smooth lines, watched the failing sun set him alight, so that he burned burnished at the edges. It was twisted up in the wild wings of his hair, in the churned curls that were bound by no reason – a dazzling, dazzled cacophony that made her fingers tingle with desire to fist them tight, or tease them like wool around her own brown fingers.

Like her, he sat with a thoughtless ease amidst the sway of the rigging – a token, she knew, from many days and months at sea. One of the few things she knew of his deep past was that he'd sailed with the Argonauts in his youth. The sea had swallowed up his earliest adulthood; his seat wouldn't have been surer in a cradle. She could lean into him, press hard into his side in search of that contrast – dark and light, night and day – thoughtless of safety. They were unmoved in a mated canvas of sky and sea. Here in this moment, if only in this moment, his other obligations were moot. Here, he was hers.

Hers. She watched him perch there, waiting patiently, while his eyes followed the sea. Watched him wait for her to reach for him, allow _her_ to take the initiative and keep it. It was his way with women, she knew. He didn't need anything from her. Not validation, affirmation, or stroking. He had nothing to prove to her or anyone else, and so he could forfeit control. In the rare way of a very few men, he didn't need dominance to seem strong. He just was.

And she fiercely loved that part of him. She liked she could have him, without him becoming weak.

"You should be careful, you know." His voice sounded through the stillness, filtered through her thick, stirring hair, a warm breath on the back of her ear. He shifted so their skin brushed, a kind of kiss. "What will your crew think?"

She smiled, returning his cocky tease. Her men cared very little who she dallied with, and any who did could shut their cakeholes. She breathed deep of him – earth, vegetation, and freshwater rain still pressed into his skin. And then the deeper, more subtle warrior smells – the metallic sweetness of a well cared for weapon, worn leather aged with sweat from where his bracers had been. She sighed. He mixed well with the smell of the sea.

And he was comfortable here, with her. She could see it in the way the margin of tension in his shoulders had eased. In the way his face stretched toward the sun and his shoulders braced against the welcome breeze. "You could get used to this." She smiled at him, a knowing look.

A soft chuckle, a long inhale. "Yeah, I love the sea," he said. His smile was free as a child's, though somewhat more wicked. "Thought…I didn't used to, you know."

"No?"

Again, that grin. "Nope," he answered. "I thought it was beautiful and everything, but I didn't learn to swim until I was almost twenty."

"You?" she asked. The man was a fish; she'd seen him over the side in a calm. But then, she knew almost nothing about him in the before times. Like he knew almost nothing about her. It was neater that way, less complicated. They had a relationship of moments, and each one was too precious to waste on the past.

He responded to her dramatized disbelief. "What? You were born frolicking in the sea?"

"Maybe I was," she said. She wasn't. Water wasn't for swimming where she came from.

Unaware of her thoughts, the man continued his anecdote. "Well, Jason taught me. I think he felt bad for chucking me into a lake when we were kids. That or else he knew what Herc would do to him if I drowned while we went after that stupid fleece."

"Jason. As in Jason of the Argonauts."

"As in King Jason," he corrected. "Well, former king."

There was a shrug in his voice, a carelessness that spurred her words. "Don't take this the wrong way, curly," she teased him. "But I can't see you in a court, scrapping before royalty." Ironic, but true. Even the thought of him with his head bowed was comical.

"Yeah, well, I'm a versatile guy." The glint in his eye was serious enough that she could almost believe him, but at the next moment, the same moment, he was chuckling clear and uncomplicated. "The reality is that we were academy buddies. Or at least he and Herc were, and he warmed up to me."

Sounds on the deck interrupted him, a friendly, half-heard jeer shouted up at them and Iolaus frowned, shaking his head demonstratively. He'd made quick friends with her boys. A strong, hard worker with a good set of seamanlike hands would never be unwelcome, especially one coupled with a streak of impious humor and who knew their way around a sword. He fit here.

He fit. It was a dangerous thought to entertain.

"This…it wouldn't work." The soft words startled her, brought her attention all to him. A sadness reflected on his face that made a stony part of her ache. She hadn't ached for anyone is a long time. He repeated, "Nebula. It wouldn't work."

She marveled at his sensitivity, that he could so closely divine her thoughts. She wanted to be disappointed, but then, the words were only an echo of her own doubt. He was too pretty a rouge to keep for herself, and anyway pirates weren't big on fidelity. But then, no one had ever made her want to try it before. She'd never wished for someone to stay. But…their fierce independence in spite of their circumstances – she a woman, and he an unusual, mortal companion to something like a god – was part of the reason for their strong attraction.

She murmured to him, "It's asking too much…to keep you." A little surprise showed in a fair, slightly arched brow. Even his eye lashes were blond. He read her expression: _'It's asking too much, not to have to share.'_

For some reason, he settled him into a quiet, peaceful melancholy. "I…I was married once, you know." He smiled at her, a little wanly. "I've done that, I mean. Being bound to one person, staying in once place."

"She died." She said it like a statement, because suddenly she couldn't imagine him leaving for any other reason, in spite of her earlier consideration.

He heaved a slow sigh, and she watched the tension drain from the trapeze of tense muscle in his back. It was a having-come-to-terms motion. "Yeah," he grinned. "She did."

Sounds of the rustling sheets and taught cordage, the intimately familiar sound, smell, and motion of wood straining as it was intended. "You wouldn't have to stay in one place." She didn't think a little cheek could do much harm, and it was as close as she would come to outright asking him. She didn't know why she bothered. She already knew the answer.

It came in one word: "Herc." Then he added, "I'm sorry, Nebula."

Part of him was, she knew. But he had chosen his duty a long time ago.

"I know, Curly." She drew him close, resting in that contact, however mercurial. He smelled like sweet earth and soft leather, but he tasted like the layer of salt spray that would never have time to sink permanently into his skin. Not before he stepped off her ship into another random port, both of them wondering if maybe they'd see each other again…or not.

And like every time, she'd be just a little unsettled about just how much the transient hero made her _care._

* * *

Author's Note: This challenge gave me fits, since I am convinced I do not have a romantic bone in my entire body from a literary perspective. That being said, once I got started, I actually really enjoyed the female perspective. Iolaus is quite charming, and writing from a perspective of unabashed, appreciative scrutiny was admittedly fun (pirate growl).


End file.
